Have religious groups been more zealously inclined to push fanaticism across America, in the past decade?

Yes, and any group that uses religion to justify repression and hatred is a worry. For myself, I see it as the last dying gasp of a way of thinking that has had its day...but they're desperate and will do whatever it takes to make their point before they kick off. As a Canadian atheist I chuckle at them, but I also shake my head at their ignorance and I hope that sanity prevails. I'd rather not live next to a theocracy ruled by ignorant nitwits.

I think so.

Religion is dying. Slowly in America, but it is dying. But what is happening is that the moderate Christians are the one moving to non-belief or just some spiritual belief. This is leaving Christianity populated by more and more extremists, with fewer and fewer moderates to provide a calming voice.

So Christianity is being distilled down - becoming smaller in volume but stronger in opinion.

Interestingly enough I see exactly the same thing happening ot the Republican party.

If they carry on as is, both will be reduced to a vitriolic insignificance. The only question is what will come in to replace them in the mainstream.

A lot of people don't realize that religion is only beneficial to them, the adherent and then only if they are willing to actually open up their minds. To many it's either a club that gives them some rules to live by or some sort of league or guild that needs constant defense against the huns that ally against it (and they figure the best defense is a good offense). Most religion is a waste of time for such people. Edit: Citizen...or sending "me too" letters to ask their congressional representative to support the invasion of Iraq. Churches are hardly the moral guideposts we thought them to be at one time.

Yes. Just look at the countless "pro-family" (code for anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-anybody who isn't RRRW Christian) groups that have sprung up with the express purpose of forcing their will on the nation. Look at the myriad anti-choice laws proposed (some even passed) this year alone. Look at the anti-gay laws passed over the past decade. The RRRW has been out in full force working to turn this into a Christian theocracy.

I think so, but that is my opinion alone. I have no stats.

However, I would give you this thought. The rise and slow decline of large churches has to tell you something. What does it mean when a very large church comes into being? What do they talk about? What do they want? Is there a difference between them and small churches?

I have forgotten the name of the small church that wanted to protest the grieving of the death of servicemen/women. If that isn't the act of a fanatic, I don't know what is.

Of course they have. It's what people do when they're cornered. It's the last gasp of religious fundamentalism on this planet, and they're probably unconsciously aware of that. Not just across America though, the middle east is going through the same, fanatical, desperate retaliation against their own inevitable extinction.

I think it really got started in the eighties with the Moral Majority's use of Richard Viguerie's massive direct mail campaign tactics to push a conservative social agenda.

Then after Pat Robertson's "God told me to run," failed Presidential bid, the Christian Coalition used the same direct mail approach. But they had the advantage of the millions of addresses of Robertson's supporters.

They've been organized for years, but I think it's just a lot more noticeable now with the rise of the internet and right-wing mouthpieces like FOX News.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Viguerie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Coalition_o...

Some, I'm sure. a lot of times it depends on who is standing behind the pulpit. All too often, the pulpit exposes a lack of knowledge, I have found. So, as with any Biblical time period, God's supposed people are failing to keep in touch with God, but will act like the opposite is true.

does the pope sleep in the woods? is the bear catholic?

YES!

Seems that way.